When I brought home my horses, I quickly learned that finding the right bedding made all the difference in how long it took to do chores.
The next course of action was shavings. They came in easy to stack bags, smelled great, and made the stall look so pretty when it was new and fresh. Clean up was easy, just scoop and toss. I did notice a few things I didn’t like; I was throwing away a lot of “good” bedding that was mixed in with the bad and pee areas were still puddles for quite a while before the shavings could suck it up. I did like the fluffy nature of shavings though, when laid deep offered warmth in winter like straw.
I don’t remember what I was watching one day but I came across pellet bedding. I think it was on Youtube to be honest. Since one of my stalls needed a total strip down anyway I opted to give the bedding a try. I bought (4) 40lbs bags for my 11×11 stall, cut open the tops and filled each bag with 2.5 gallons of water and let them sit. WOAH, the bags swelled right up and over flowed with sawdust. I dumped the bags and used my trusty fork to spread the bedding around evenly. I was surprised on how much bedding there was, it filled up the whole stall 2-4” deep which is way more than I’d usually put in a stall.
The first time I picked out the stall after using this bedding was amazing. The sawdust just fell right through the fork leaving me with only “apples” to toss. Pee areas clumped together so picking up only the wet stuff was easy leaving the dry to mix in. I wasted hardly any bedding.
I’m in my 2nd year of using pellet bedding and have found for me the best use is 1-2 bags per stall initially adding 1(dry) bag a week and concentrate the bedding to pee areas.
I did initially freak out using this bedding with my alpacas. They loved it so much and all of them rolled in it covering them in the fine sawdust. My mind went straight to shearing season and how much work I just created for myself having to figure out how to get that fine dust out of their fleece. It turns out the sawdust is nothing like shavings in alpaca fleece. Dry sawdust rests on top of the fleece and when they shake it all falls off. I skirted 8 fleeces and didn’t have a sawdust problem in any of them.
My only complaint about sawdust bedding is the dust. If disturbed by wind the bedding creates a fine dust in the air. I can’t imagine it’s good to breathe in but using a hose on “mist” wets down the bedding keeping it from floating away. Unfortunately, winter = no misting = dry bedding.
I’m now searching for a stall fork that will sift out the sawdust but let me pick the alpaca beans. I haven’t found one yet. I’ll keep you updated.
